Why Beijing Won't Landfill This Valuable Sinkhole In The Disputed South China Sea

China has reclaimed between 2,900 and 3,200 acres (1,294 hectares) of land in a widely disputed sea off its south coast, outraging neighbors. Anger crested in Vietnam in 2014 with deadly anti-Beijing protests as the Philippines was asking the world arbitration court for a ruling on how much China could claim. Now a Chinese city says it has found an environmentally valuable ocean sinkhole in its Paracel archipelago holdings, and to protect it the city is asking even its own people to stay away. They won’t be landfilling 300-meter-deep (984-foot) Dragon Hole, the world’s biggest blue hole water feature.

Environmentalists can celebrate. But wary foreign governments ultimately will see the move as a hardening of China’s already powerful maritime sovereignty claims.

Anti-China protesters shout slogans in front of the Chinese embassy during a rally in Hanoi on May 11, 2014. (MAI KY/AFP/Getty Images)

The Chinese city of Sansha ordered on its website this month that no one approach Dragon Hole for fishing, tourism or – barring permission -- scientific research. Sansha controls the blue hole’s locale, Yongle archipelago, as part of the 130 Paracel islets southwest of Hong Kong. Beijing is keen on the Paracels as it expands across the bigger South China Sea to get seafood, gas, oil and territorial control despite objections from five rival claimants. Blue holes, named for their water color, anywhere are considered rare and worthy of scientific research. The city’s order on Saturday is meant to “help protect” the blue hole and nearby coral reef ecosystem, the official China Daily newspaper online says.

Sansha’s restrictions may deflect foreign criticism that China cares little about the marine environment as it expands. China might have put Sansha up to this to look like a good neighbor, which other countries hope it will be after its quick land reclamation that infringes on rival claims. Vietnam also claims the Paracels and has lost effective control of some islets to China. “Investing in research and restricting commercial activity would be seen as giving a boost to China’s claims to ‘effective marine stewardship’ of South China Sea islands,” says Jeffrey Wilson, international political economy senior lecturer with Murdoch University in Australia.

A China Central Television video of Dragon Hole shows a diver swimming next to vertical underwater cliffs and above a seabed of coral and small tropical fish. The hole’s diameter at the top is about 130 meters and it’s 36 meters at the bottom, says China Daily, citing a research organization called Track Ocean. Organizations and individuals cannot carry out activities within one nautical mile of Dragon Hole, the city of Sansha says.

Chinese authorities have allowed tourism in the archipelago equidistant from China and Vietnam and stood accused of letting visitors poach endangered marine species. On Woody Island, the group’s largest land form, China has reportedly deployed surface-to-air missiles. China took control of Woody Island in 1956 and it's also the site of a harbor for vessels of up to 5,000 metric tons. Other claimants fear China will assert further control over the 3.5 million-square-km (1.4 million-square-mile) sea despite the July 12 world arbitration court's verdict saying that course is largely illegal.

Sansha’s rule that any blue hole research or eco-protection work get prior approval “signifies the fact that the move is more about the effective control rather than environmental protection," says Yun Sun, senior associate with the East Asia Program at the Stimson Center think tank in the United States.

Orders to avoid the blue hole will probably clear the way for official Chinese scientific exploration aimed at shoring up the government's Paracel claims, says Andrew Yang, secretary general with the Chinese Council of Advanced Policy Studies think tank in Taiwan. “Basically they are claiming that area to be part of Chinese territory and protect their interests there,” Yang says.